[DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters in Sherlock. These are the right of BBC and the lovely Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.]

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

Sometimes, on nights like this, Sherlock wondered what it would be like to stop breathing at all.

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

He'd never attempted anything drastic; he believed that he was too important to the world as to try to remove himself from it.

Breathe in, breathe out. Click.

Sherlock held a cigarette up to the tiny flame flickering at the end of his red plastic lighter. A wisp of smoke trickled up and out, dissipating into the bitter night air. He sucked in deeply, letting the hot smoke fill his chest, only to breathe it back out and feel cold all over again. He stepped out from under the pavilion he was standing under
and into the snow, letting a single, lacy snowflake land on his alabaster hand. Beautiful.

He stared into the night, wondering yet again what would happen if he were to no longer exist. If the world was void of Sherlock Holmes, he wanted to believe that something big and remarkable would be missing. He wanted desperately to feel needed, more desperately than he craved nicotine and more desperately than he craved the darker substances that once flowed freely through his veins. He felt the weight of the want crushing down on him, making him feel more alone than he thought was possible.

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

He stared at the stars, admiring the constellations. He could never be as important as stars. He knew little about astronomy-- frankly, he found it boring and pointless when there were so many thing on earth that no one was willing to take time to understand-- but he knew without them, the universe would lose its balance. However, Sherlock wasn't a star, and his microcosm would continue to revolve around the sun twenty-four hours a day if he was no longer there. In the Sherlock universe, he was no more than a comet, hurtling around without direction, and destroying things in his path. His parents had told him so, his brother had told him so-- hell, his so-called friends had told him so, but he had dug himself farther and farther and farther into the pit he was in with drugs and nicotine, drugs and nicotine, drugs and nicotine...

"Shut. Up." Sherlock's teeth were gritted, he he spoke with a voice full of absolute agony. He hated that voice. He hated himself.

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe--

"Sherlock, dear brother, what are you doing out here so late? It's much past time for you to get to your dormitory."

Lovely. Sherlock knew that syrupy voice too well, the roundness of his vowels and the posh quality of his voice just perfectly calculated to make Sherlock feel infinitely inferior. "Mycroft."

"What is this?" Mycroft nodded at the cigarette in Sherlock's skeleton fingers, that fake smile still playing on his lips.

Sherlock said nothing; Mycroft knew bloody well what it was, and he knew bloody well that it was better than Sherlock's alternate vice. Smoking could kill him, but injecting a seven-percent solution of cocaine into his bloodstream could kill him much, much quicker.

"Your lighter, please, dear brother." Without looking at him, Sherlock hurled the lighter in Mycroft's general direction, feeling very on edge. Mycroft held enormous power over Sherlock, as he was head faculty in the school which he attended, resulting in Sherlock's reduced-price admission. It was Mycroft's sole doing that Sherlock had not wound up in a correctional facility because of his former habit, which Sherlock begrudgingly appreciated, but Mycroft could revoke this decision at any time with ease. Sherlock decidedly did not want that.

Click. Mycroft lit a cigarette, and handed the lighter back to Sherlock. "I'm not going to report you, Sherlock. You needn't be so... catty."

Sherlock coughed, choking on a long drag of smoke which he had just inhaled. "Catty?"

"Yes, I think so. That show of throwing the lighter at me was rather girlish, don't you think?"

Sherlock's stared at his brother with squinted eyes, both relieved that he wasn't going to be reported and angry with his brother's general... Mycroft-ness. His brownish-blonde, already thinning hair pointed to a great deal of stress, but his nearly-wrinkle-less, baby face said otherwise. He simultaneously loved the job and hated it, but the pressure of having this job so young obviously broke him to the point of a regular smoking habit. "Hard day?"

"Very." Mycroft smiled sadly. "However, as I said already, you need to get back to your dormitory immediately, so I suggest you leave now." His voice remained cordial, but was laced with threat. "Goodnight."

Sherlock rolled his eyes and stalked away, muttering something derogatory about Mycroft's eating habits, before making his way briskly down the hall. As many times as he did it, it was always unusual to see Baker's Academy at night. While it seemed very alive during the day-- and smelled much too alive for Sherlock's taste-- it seemed eerily empty and dead without the lights on and voices floating down the halls. The moonlight in the windows cast a silvery-blue glow through the hallways, making the building a dismal shell of its usual self. The dark hallway, filled with empty classrooms, was depressed.

Sherlock could relate.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

The boy's dormitory was significantly more alive than the classroom building. Not quite happy, and certainly not cheerful, but it was definitely not as dead as the classroom building. Perhaps, Sherlock thought, if people were around, that meant you were alive.

If that was the case, Sherlock was most certainly dead, so he brushed the thought off, but remained lost in thought.

He popped a breath mint in an attempt to erase any signs of his smoking habit before he had to face the masses of teenage boys again, which he was dreading enormously. There wasn't much he could do about the smoke smelling trench coat, but he figured that if need be, he'd come up with something. Satisfied, he rounded the corner, looked up, and

BAM!

Something-- someone-- rammed into him hard. Sherlock groaned, rubbing his shoulder, as the person began to apologize profusely.

But where... there. Sherlock quickly snatched up the pack of cigarettes, hoping, praying that no one had seen them. Especially not the person he'd just collided with. He didn't know them, he thought, as he looked them over. He couldn't trust them.

"Watch where you're going next time," Sherlock hissed, shoving the cigarettes in his trench coat pocket. "And the nurse is that way, so you can get your anxiety medication," Sherlock said, pointing to the left, "not whatever direction you were going.

The person, a boy, his age, with sandy blonde hair and a short, boxy frame, looked at him, mouth agape. "H-How did... how did you...?" He spluttered, looking uncertain. His expression grew uneasy. "I swear, if this is another of those hazing tricks... I have been at this school for four months now...."

Sherlock shook his head impatiently. "No, I just noticed."

"Noticed? How...?"

"You're in your pajamas and slippers, so you're not going anywhere far. You've got a prescription bottle in your hand, but whenever you move your hand, the pills inside don't rattle, so it's empty. The writing on it is a doctor's hand, so you have a note, but the bottle looks like medication you could buy from a drugstore. You're headed in the general direction of the nurse, presumably to refill the pills, but you're going to the wrong place which makes sense since you're new. Nurses don't have many prescription pills like that, so she's got to be giving you something that more than one kid has to take-- such as ADHD or anxiety medicine. I just took a guess," Sherlock rattled off, looking somewhat annoyed.

"You're... you're completely right."

"I am aware." With that, Sherlock turned swiftly and made his way to his room.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

John was astonished. He had initially been sure that this had been yet another hazing trick, but now he wasn't sure. He hadn't told anyone about the anxiety medication, so that... that stupid mind-reading charcoal-haired boy couldn't have heard. However, he didn't understand how he could have picked that up.

But before John could ask more questions, he was gone, trench coat (who wore trench coats anymore?) trailing after him. John didn't even have time to ask his name.

Finally, he made his way down the left corridor toward the nurse. He was getting more pills, and yes, they were for his anxiety, and, another frustrating yes, he was in fact allowed by a doctor to self-administer said pills. They couldn't kill him or make him high, so he was to take him if he felt a panic attack coming on. This occurrence was more frequent than John wanted to admit.

He opened the well-worn door with a creeeeaaak, to find Nurse Hudson sitting and waiting for him. She was an amiable woman, who was always welcoming, and always fond of everyone who came into her little office, no matter who they were. Her smile radiated sunlight, and he felt instantly at ease.

"Erm, Nurse Hudson, hi, I'm John Watson, I..."

"Oh, John Watson, I've heard so much about you, you seem so lovely... What's the matter, dear?"

"I have, um, to get a prescription from you. The doctor said you should have them, they're a mild anxiety drug, uh..."

"Yes, of course dear." The small woman moved quicker than John had expected to get the pills. She knew exactly what he needed, so John concluded that they must've had only one type of anxiety drug here. That, or that everyone at this school was a bloody mind reader.

"Lots of medicine in here... I'm always in charge of drugs. But," she said with a flourish, putting the smooth plastic bottle into John's rough hands, "that is a story for another day. Off you go, dear."

John thanked her quickly and left, walking quickly back down the corridor he came. It wasn't too late, only around ten, but students were supposed to be in their dormitories as soon as the lights went down. In the winter, John noticed, the lights went down too soon.

He looked out the window- snow. First snow he'd seen all winter. John loved snow, he had since he was a little boy. He loved the way it looked; he loved the way it smelled; he loved the way it tasted when he caught a flake on his tongue. He loved the way that that each design was rare and unique, but every one of them was beautiful. He always made a point of being outside during the first snow, and he had no intentions of breaking this tradition now.

He slowly, quieeeetly creaked the door open, realizing too late that he hadn't checked to make sure there weren't alarms on the door. He held his breath as he stepped outside. Nothing. With a sigh of relief, he jammed one well-worn slipper into the space between the wall and the door as a doorstop; the last thing he needed was to be locked out of the school on a night like this. He stuck his tongue out, and after a few moments of awkwardly darting around, caught a snowflake. It melted on his tongue instantaneously, and he shut his eyes. Bliss.

He sighed into the frosty air, leaving a crystalline version of his breath suspended in the night. He'd always pretended he was smoking when he did this, as a kid. It make him appreciate the fact that he was really, truly there, living and breathing.

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

A/N: yaaaaaay first chapter!!! I'm really truly going to try with this fic. I've got lots of ideas that I'm seriously hoping to actually form into coherent sentences for once. Yay!

But seriously, thank you for reading this. I hope this is the start of a medium length journey that takes no longer than a year.

Srsly.

Thank you ;)